Strategies for ESL Teachers

Strategies for ESL Teachers

ESL teachers work with students in a variety of conditions: pull-out classes, core classes where children start in the ESL class for all or part of the school day and are gradually mainstreamed into content-area classes, and newcomer centers where language and social/cultural skills are developed before the students are moved into school settings with native speakers. Each of these settings requires the teacher to use different ways of organizing the classroom, designing a curriculum, and presenting lessons. However, some basic elements underlie all good language

The following strategies are designed to enable ESL Learners to develop their English language skills in both social and academic contexts.

Broad Classroom Strategies:

v  Create an environment where learners feel secure and are prepared to take risks

v  Support and value learners’ languages and cultures

v  Build on the knowledge, skills and understandings that students bring to the learning context

v  Build on the linguistic understandings students have of their own language

v  Encourage the use of the learners’ first language if the learner is literate in that language

v  Use themes and topics which are relevant to learners’ particular needs

v  Expose learners to socio-cultural information which enables them to understand and participate in culture and society

v  Focus on purposeful communicative activities which are comprehensible and appropriate to the learner’s age and needs

v  Generally teach the macro skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in an integrated way, although at times there may be a need to focus on a particular aspect of one eg pronunciation, listening to specific instructions

v  Focus on developing learners’ oral language skills for oral language development and to support writing

v  Support the learners’ language skills development through scaffolding the learners’ language

v  Explicitly teach new language (vocabulary, text types, grammar, sound knowledge, pronunciation, intonation) in the context of a theme or topic

v  Use pair and group work and peer/cross age tutoring to maximise language interaction in a low stress environment and to encourage risk taking

v  Jointly deconstruct and construct texts to model how texts work to achieve their purposes

v  Use an experiential approach to provide meaningful contexts

v  Use visual cues wherever necessary to clarify and reinforce concepts

v  Use graphic organisers (diagrams, timelines, concept maps etc) to represent and organise ideas and to develop thinking skills

v  Recycle language to ensure its learning

v  Encourage older learners to keep a glossary or a personal dictionary of words and meanings

v  Ensure that assessment tasks, activities and criteria are relevant to the student’s stage of English language development

v  Use SSO support to work with a student on individual needs

Teacher talk

v  Keep talk to a minimum

v  Use clear, common and consistent instructions and repeat or rephrase if necessary

v  Speak at a normal pace and volume

v  Don’t use too much jargon

v  Support instructions with visual cues as much as posible

           

Summary:

The strategies provided in this article as well as those were seen in class. Helps Improve teaching on students in order to everyone can learn in a clear and simple way.

           

Concluding Remarks:

In my opinión, as teachers we have to reflect about how we are teaching and update our practice to attend student needs, putting a strong emphasis on the human side of teaching. We must focus on the students and find effective ways to organize their learning to help them achieve goals. We shouldnt  think about to come into the room and teach, we must worry if they are learning, we must ask, interact with them thus, they could absolve doubts about the class.